Migration Statistics

James Brokenshire Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) for the work of his Committee and for his speech this afternoon. He advocated the points his Committee made on the quality of immigration information, as well as presenting the broader issues about immigration, its importance as an issue to the public and the occasional complexity of the debate about it. Those points were echoed in contributions by other right hon. and hon. Members, and were made clearly by my hon. Friends the Members for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) and for Windsor (Adam Afriyie).

Immigration impacts upon every part of our lives. It is important that the debate about and Government policy on immigration are well informed—that is why I welcome the contribution from the Public Administration Committee—and migration statistics clearly play a crucial role in that, so it is right that we discuss how we can ensure that they are as accurate and as relevant as possible. I therefore express the gratitude of the Government to the Committee for both its report on migration statistics and the wide-ranging programme of work that it has undertaken recently on statistical issues more generally.

In our response to the Committee the Government welcomed many of the positive points made. It is heartening to see the Committee acknowledge the improvements since 2011 in the breadth of migration data published by the Home Office. Those improvements have also been welcomed in feedback from a wide range of users of the statistics. We agree with the recommendations on better communication of migration statistics—a complex issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight highlighted. Not everyone will be as familiar with the intricacies of those statistics, or where they can be found, as the hon. Members in the Chamber this afternoon. I am therefore pleased by the positive view of the Committee about the accessibility of our statistics on the new Home Office website.

[Mr Graham Brady in the Chair]

We also agree that public understanding of migration issues can be poor and that ongoing work to improve that understanding is required. I welcome the support of the Committee and everyone who has contributed to the debate this afternoon in that context. It is to improve public understanding that we work closely with the Office for National Statistics on the migration statistics quarterly report, which provides an overview of migration trends each quarter. The report details both ONS statistics and Home Office data on visas and asylum to provide the public with a coherent picture of migration. The ONS is the independent and trusted source of immigration statistics, and I am pleased with the significant steps it has taken to improve how it presents those statistics. I know many users have already commented on the improvements in its webpages about migration. Last week, the ONS launched a public consultation on further changes to the quarterly release, and I urge all those with an interest in these issues to contribute to that so that we can make further improvements.

Although the Government welcome a number of the Committee’s proposals on clearer communications, which chime well with our approach and that of the Office for National Statistics, as our response indicated we do not agree with all of the Committee’s recommendations. I will address the main points in that regard, as well as dealing with other issues that have come up during the course of the debate.

First, we do not agree that the international passenger survey is inadequate for measuring migration. The view of the independent UK Statistics Authority is that our migration statistics are the best available within the current level of resources and that the ONS has taken significant steps in recent years to ensure that the statistics are as reliable and accurate as possible. I will go on to explore that in further detail.

The issues of cost, value and expenditure have been raised this afternoon and were also highlighted during the Committee’s evidence session on this matter. It may be helpful if I provide some more context. The international passenger survey already screens close to 800,000 travellers per year to determine whether they are migrants. It has been suggested that we increase the sample size—indeed, that was suggested this afternoon. In oral evidence to the Committee the issue of quadrupling the budget for the IPS came up. At that time, both the Chair of the Committee and Guy Goodwin, the expert witness from the Office for National Statistics, agreed that that would be bad value for money.

Our current view aligns with that of the ONS: expanding the survey would be unlikely to provide value for money. However, I am conscious of the need to continue to discuss and reflect further on these issues. I note that the Prime Minister wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), Chair of both the Justice Committee and the Liaison Committee, about his recent evidence to the Liaison Committee, giving an undertaking that the Home Office would continue to discuss this issue with the ONS and would inform the Public Administration Committee of the outcome of those discussions. It is fair and appropriate that we continue the dialogue and discussion on the passenger survey and any improvements that could or should be made to it in the context of both the report’s recommendations and our proper consideration of the facts.

In that context, it is important to note that we have been sharing data from what is known as the Semaphore system, which uses advance passenger information. I draw the attention of right hon. and hon. Members to the statement released by the ONS on 13 June, in which it underlined the fact that it had received an extract of Semaphore data and set out the work it was undertaking in respect of those data. The ONS is doing further analysis of the data and will be providing further responses and updates in due course, so work is ongoing in that regard.

Alongside that, on 13 June we saw the user update on that work, and there will be further important updates at the end of the year. The ONS has committed to that, and I am happy to provide further details to the Chair of the Select Committee. I am also pleased to be able to reassure the House that the Home Office will continue to collaborate closely with the ONS in its work on this matter. I am happy to provide a further report on that work at the same time as the ONS provides its update.

[Mr Jenkin]

In my remarks, I raised the question of the 2011 study conducted by the Home Office into the expansion of the use of separate migration survey data. That would cost only £2 million, so is much better value than increasing the size of the international passenger survey. Is the Minister going to come on to that point in his remarks?

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend did mention that specific aspect. The current discussions with the ONS indicate that its current approach is, rather, to look at other forms of data—other administrative data, such as those from the Department for Work and Pensions—to better inform the statistics. That is its preferred option for this type of work. I give a commitment to discuss the issues again as part of our discussions with the ONS, but that is its preferred approach instead of setting up a separate survey. I have noted the point that my hon. Friend has made, following on from the Select Committee’s recommendations, and we will check and confer with the ONS that that remains its preferred response in providing more localised data in order to inform this subject more carefully. That is certainly the feedback that we have had thus far in respect of what might be beneficial or might help to supplement the information provided by the international passenger survey.

The proposal to increase the IPS may not provide the best value for money, but that does not mean that we or the ONS are at all complacent, or that we do not recognise where improvements can be made. In that context—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor advanced this point—it has been acknowledged that there were problems with the IPS’s estimates following the large surge in eastern European migrants following EU enlargement in 2004. We know that the absence of transitional controls, unlike elsewhere, in the majority view resulted in an unprecedented and surprising number of new arrivals in the years that followed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex highlighted, that significant change also surprised the statisticians. That is why the ONS has taken steps since then to address the coverage of the IPS survey. The ONS is rightly independent and I cannot speak for it, but the revised statistics it has published indicate that some of the issues have been resolved by the size of the survey and some of the specific questions that are being raised as part of its migration statistics improvement programme. The problems that the ONS found were in the survey design, and they have been addressed by recalibrating the survey’s coverage and increasing the sample size as part of that programme.

Questions have been asked about whether the figures are reliable enough for the Government to use them as a basis for our aim on net migration. I accept that any reliance on a survey to monitor a policy objective inevitably means confidence intervals in the central estimates. However, this is not a new issue. Survey estimates have been used in this way for many years to monitor Government policy and societal changes more generally. They are well-established scientific techniques used to ensure that social surveys are well designed and their estimates robust. That is why I would take the advice of the UK Statistics Authority that the central statistical estimate derived from the IPS is currently the best available estimate of net migration.

It must also be remembered that we have a lot of information on migration to monitor migration policy from a wide range of other sources that provide a clear and coherent picture of trends. That picture is reported every quarter in the ONS’s migration statistics quarterly report, and I welcome the steps that the ONS is taking to improve the way in which the data are reported and presented. Those data sources continue to be developed and improved—for example, with the release of additional information by the Home Office on certificates of acceptance of study. The new data allow the public and us to see the impact of the Government’s policies to close down bogus colleges. My hon. Friends will no doubt be aware of my most recent announcements on this issue.

As well as reporting on trends, it is important to look at the impact of migration, and we are grateful for the excellent work of the ONS, through its reports from the 2011 census and other sources, in informing the British public clearly and authoritatively about the significant changes in population that we have seen over the past decade and the impact of migration on the make-up of the population in the UK.

[Adam Afriyie]

I appreciate some of the assurances the Minister is giving. General key concerns are whether the changes to which he is referring—I appreciate that they are not all in place—will mitigate the criticisms or observations by the Royal Statistical Society and the Oxford migration observatory that, with the present statistics and information, we cannot at the moment work out reliably people’s source country or changes in the migratory patterns from individual source countries in the EU or elsewhere, or the impact on specific regions in the United Kingdom. Is he satisfied that with the changes being made those concerns will be mitigated?

[James Brokenshire]

I will come to exit checks. The way in which advance passenger information data can be used to supplement and for support is important and I will address that directly. I highlight the fact that there are other sources of data. My hon. Friend may be aware of the workforce data survey and the use of the statistics for national insurance registrations. The IPS itself highlights and provides data in its reports and analysis in respect of different countries and provides separate analyses of where those flows come from, such as net migration from outside and from within the EU, and it produces the graphs that my hon. Friend has no doubt seen, tracking those back over 30 years. It gives a sense of long-term trends; it is important to understand where there may be growth in particular areas and what that might mean in terms of informing policy.

It is important to recognise some of the excellent and innovative research and analysis that has increased our knowledge of migration—for example, the migrant journey reports, the report on the social and public service impact of migration, and the recent report on labour market changes. All that work is critical in helping us to understand and appreciate the impact of migration on our country.

I highlighted the 2011 census, which provides extremely valuable data that has captured a much broader range of information on migrants than any census previously. The new census questions on the passports that people hold and the length of time they have lived in the UK recognise the strong public concerns about immigration. We welcome that new statistical resource, which will go some way to meeting the Committee’s recommendation, but I will come to further refinements.

The Home Office has commissioned additional data to inform our understanding, such as a new question on emigration in the international passenger survey, the first results from which are now in the public domain, and a new question for the labour force survey on why foreign respondents had originally come to the UK. The breadth and depth of that work reinforces the fact that no single data source can provide a comprehensive picture of migration. That is why I also welcome the work in the UK statistical system to develop and enhance the range of sources, which together mean that we have a picture of migration that I believe is as good as that available to any other country across the globe.

I noted what the shadow Minister said about filling out the ESTA form and how that might be used. It is interesting to note that the US uses population surveys, not the ESTA system, to measure migration. It is important to recognise the interrelationship between the two, and that in some respects the information from e-Borders may help to supplement, but not replace, other information.

[Mr Hanson]

The point I was making about the ESTA system was that—unlike, potentially, our visa system—the Americans would know when and whether I had left the country.

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman draws me on to the e-Borders system and its programme. We hear the point that the Committee has made in respect of that. While valuable, the border systems data are, in our judgment, not the right way to measure immigration flows, for which we believe that well-designed surveys are more appropriate. The data do not capture passengers’ onward travel plans or duration of stay, so they could not be directly used to measure long-term international migration. Rather, they are designed to alert us to passengers of interest leaving and entering the country, so that we can strengthen security and immigration controls. They allow law enforcement partners to target and monitor those seeking to travel to and from the UK who might harm this country’s interests—the point my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor highlighted. They are an extremely valuable tool; indeed, since 2010 our border systems have issued alerts resulting in more than 13,300 arrests, including 60 for murder, 59 for kidnap and 167 for rape.

I therefore understand why the Committee took the view that border systems data might entirely replace the IPS. However, that is at odds with the statistical advice we have received and the evidence that academic experts provided to the Committee. None the less, it is important to see how the information can be used to interpret what is happening. That is why it is important to share Semaphore data with the ONS, so that the ONS can carry out further analysis.

I want to come back on some of the points made about exit checks. The Home Office is on track to meet by April 2015 the commitment to introduce exit checks on those who leave the UK via scheduled international air, sea and rail services. Exit check capability will be founded on advance passenger information, supplemented by embarkation checks at ports, where necessary. That will further bolster border security.

Exit checks will also identify individuals who are wanted by the police, who pose security, immigration or customs threats, or who fail to comply with the conditions of their visas. It is important that checks are used in that way. We have introduced a power in the Immigration Act 2014 to enable those already involved in outbound passenger processes—for example, the staff of airlines, other carriers and port operators, as well as others—to integrate embarkation checks with existing processes where necessary. There is also a power to compel them to do so, if necessary.

[Mr Hanson]

Will the Minister say what the position is on non-scheduled traffic—in particular, private flights and through small airfields and small ports? I have tested him on those issues in parliamentary questions and have had no reply as yet, although that is for reasons of national security, which I understand.

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that Border Force, which is led by Sir Charles Montgomery, takes the issue of small airfields and the maritime arena very seriously. Indeed, those flying in or out of airfields must provide various reports, and that is monitored to ensure there is a focus on border security. We are focused on all those issues, and Border Force is attentive to those arrangements, as well as to broader approaches and the advance passenger information provided in respect of existing scheduled airlines and other forms of transport.

I want to come back to some of the accusations the right hon. Gentleman made, which may be founded on a reading of press reports following the appearance of the director general of Border Force at the Home Affairs Committee in March 2014. Sir Charles Montgomery wrote to the Committee to explain that the reporting in the media was “factually incorrect”. He said that the work of the e-Borders programme

“has been incorporated within the…Border Systems Programme”.

None of this work has been suspended; indeed the pace of development has quickened. The Home Office remains committed to delivering exit checks by 2015. It was never the intention of the e-Borders programme, as now incorporated in the border systems programme, to deliver a direct measure of net migration.

As a Government, we must decide what is feasible, taking account of expert evidence. The reasons why we will not be able to rely on the border systems data to measure international migration were set out in the UK Statistics Authority and Government responses to the Public Administration Committee’s report. I will not repeat all those points here, but we hold detailed information on those passengers required to apply for a visa. However, Home Office systems do not require information from those travelling from other EU countries. There is, therefore, a limit to what visa data provide.

Borders system data collect information on an individual’s travel documents, so one might imagine that one could track travel movements over time to identify the proportion of migrants. However, Professor Salt, who provided expert witness evidence to the Committee, alluded to the fact that this is not a simple matter. Difficulties associated with dual nationality, lost and renewed passports and changes of name preclude the possibility of producing statistically reliable estimates of migration flows. That means the data do not meet the very fine tolerances that would be required for a reliable statistical estimation of migration.

As I mentioned, that does not mean that data cannot be used to identify individuals of interest for valuable operational purposes. The ONS also believes there are significant benefits in using the border systems data, which will help to improve IPS weighting methodology and the identification of the main flows into and out of the UK. That will significantly enhance the degree to which we can rely on the IPS, but it does not imply that we can replace the IPS completely.

The new exit checks system, which will be introduced by April next year, will give us, for the first time, a more complete picture of those leaving the UK. The system will improve our ability to take appropriate enforcement action against those who have potentially overstayed or are abusing the UK’s health and welfare systems. However, it will not, on its own, provide a replacement for the comprehensive estimates of the number of migrants arriving in and leaving the country.

That said, the Government acknowledge the importance of the debate. That is why we will keep under review the arrangements for collecting statistics in this vital policy area. Only by ensuring that policy making and public debate are as well informed as possible can we continue to build on the successes we have already achieved. I very much welcome the contribution the Committee has made. I also welcome the contributions that right hon. and hon. Members have made this afternoon. We will keep the issue under close focus, given the importance of reliable statistics and the faith and trust that the public put in them. That will inform the important debate on immigration into this country, as well as Government policy on this essential issue.